- Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide today. I was a fan of his writing, despite him being a drug addict, alcoholic, and proponent of the most vile left-wing politics. He invented a style of writing called "gonzo journalism", which involves over the top descriptions of actual events with the author including himself in the affair. He was portrayed by Bill Murray in the movie Where the Buffalo Roam, and by Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (both dreadful movies.) I first discovered his writings while reading ESPN.com, where he did a semi-regular column (getting Hunter to do anything on a regular schedule was a monumental task.) Here is a link to his articles at ESPN.com, and a link to his article about the 2001 Kentucky Derby. His description of the derby is legendary:

UPDATE...ESPN (owned by Disney) has decided to cash in on the death of Mr.Thompson. They have turned these articles into subscriber articles, which means you now have to pay money to view them. When I wrote this Sunday night (2/20), these articles were free. Gee, I wonder how Hunter would have felt knowing that ESPN is cashing in on his death.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/archive?columnist=hunter_s._thompson&root=page2

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/010507.html

- I truly love the internet. I cant imagine life without it. Not for its practical uses, like checking your bank account, buying airline tickets, or looking up sport scores. No, I love the internet for all of the little things I find on it. Here is a webpage that will show you how common a person's first name is. Simply type in the name, and you will get a graph showing how many people were given that name during each decade of the 20th century. My first name was fairly popular during the 60's and 70's, but has fallen dramatically since then. I have only myself to blame.
http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

- Some day, in the not so distant future, we wont worry about the number of soldiers who die in Iraq. We will worry about how much money we are wasting on robots who are doing the fighting for us. The American military is already working on using robots, instead of humans, to fight our future wars. Here is an article with more information:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-asecrobosoldier20022005feb20,1,1160052.story?coll=orl-home-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true